Plants differ widely in how soil drying affects stomatal conductance ( g s) and leaf water potential ( ψ leaf), and in the underlying physiological controls. Efforts to breed crops for drought resilience would benefit from a better understanding of these mechanisms and their diversity. We grew 12 diverse genotypes of common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and four of tepary bean ( P. acutifolius; a highly drought resilient species) in the field under irrigation and terminal drought, and quantified responses of g s and ψ leaf, and their controls (soil water potential [ ψ soil], evaporative demand [Δ w] and plant hydraulic conductance [ K]). We hypothesized that (i) common beans would be more ”isohydric” (i.e., exhibit strong stomatal closure in drought, minimizing ψ leaf decline) than tepary beans, and that genotypes with larger ψ leaf decline (more ”anisohydric”) would exhibit (ii) smaller increases in Δ w, due to less suppression of evaporative cooling by stomatal closure and hence less canopy warming, but (iii) larger K declines due to ψ leaf decline. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found that half of the common bean genotypes were similarly anisohydric to most tepary beans; that isohydric genotypes experienced less canopy warming and hence smaller increases in Δ w in drought, and similar declines in K; and that stomatal closure was similar in isohydric and anisohydric genotypes. g s and ψ leaf were virtually insensitive to drought in one tepary genotype (G40068). Our results highlight the potential importance of non-stomatal mechanisms for leaf cooling, and the variability in drought resilience traits among closely related crop legumes.

Exosomes are gaining prominence as vectors for drug delivery, vaccination, and regenerative medicine. Owing to their surface biochemistry, which reflects the parent cell membrane, these nanoscale biologics feature low immunogenicity, tunable tissue tropism, and the ability to carry a variety of payloads across biological barriers. The heterogeneity of exosomes’ size and composition, however, makes their purification challenging. Traditional techniques, like ultracentrifugation and filtration, afford low product yield and purity, and jeopardizes particle integrity. Affinity chromatography represents an excellent avenue for exosome purification. Yet, current affinity media rely on antibody ligands whose selectivity grants high product purity, but mandates the customization of adsorbents for exosomes with different surface biochemistry while their binding strength imposes elution conditions that may harm product’s activity. Addressing these issues, this study introduces the first peptide affinity ligands for the universal purification of exosomes from recombinant feedstocks. The peptides were designed to (i) possess promiscuous biorecognition of exosome markers, without binding process-related contaminants, and (ii) elute the product under conditions that safeguard product stability. Selected ligands SNGFKKHI and TAHFKKKH demonstrated the ability to capture of exosomes secreted by 14 cell sources and purified exosomes derived from HEK293, PC3, MM1, U87, and COLO1 cells with yields of up-to 80% and up-to 50-fold reduction of host cell proteins upon eluting with pH gradient from 7.4 to 10.5, recommended for exosome stability. SNGFKKHI-Toyopearl resin was finally employed in a 2-step purification process to isolate exosomes from HEK293 cell fluids, affording a yield of 68% and reducing the titer of host cell proteins to 68 ng/mL. The biomolecular and morphological features of the isolated exosomes were confirmed by analytical chromatography, Western blotting, transmission electron microscopy, nanoparticle tracking analysis.

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is a cornerstone technique for analyses of semi-volatile compounds, constantly evolving to meet new challenges. The adoption of Time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF MS) has enhanced GC-MS with faster spectral acquisition and broader mass coverage, enabling rapid GC separations and even faster two-dimensional GCxGC analyses. Multi-reflecting TOF MS (MRT) further improves resolution compared to traditional TOF MS, facilitating the detection of minor analytes within complex matrices. This paper presents a significant improvement in MRT sensitivity and dynamic range achieved through a strong ion beam compression within the ion guide and the use of a conventionally oriented orthogonal accelerator. Sensitivity is improved to 100,000 ion/pg at a resolution of R=25,000, enabling the detection of low fg analyte quantities within 3 μg of matrix at 10 ng/s matrix fluxes. The demonstrated linear dynamic range exceeding 6 orders of magnitude potentially enables even deeper exploration of complex mixtures, which is crucial for ultra-trace analyses and metabolomic studies.

This brief review highlights some of the structure-activity relationships of classic serotonergic psychedelics. In particular, we discuss structural features of three chemotypes: phenethylamines, ergolines, and certain tryptamines, which possess psychedelic activity in humans. Where it is known, we point out the underlying molecular mechanisms utilized by each of the three chemotypes of psychedelic molecules. With a focus on the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor subtype, a G-protein coupled receptor known to be the primary target of psychedelics, we reference several x-ray and cryoEM structures with various ligands bound to illustrate the underlying atomistic basis for some of the known pharmacological observations of psychedelic drug actions.

Harnessing the computational power of large-scale models while managing their efficiency remains a critical challenge in machine learning. Introducing a token-level recurrent router offers a novel solution to optimize the distribution of computational resources among experts, dynamically enhancing both the precision of expert selection and the overall performance of the model. By implementing this adaptive routing mechanism within the Mistral 8x7b Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model, the study achieves substantial improvements in routing accuracy, scalability, and computational efficiency. The recurrent router's ability to adjust its routing decisions based on evolving token context allows it to handle complex linguistic structures and long-range dependencies more effectively, providing a balanced and efficient use of computational resources. Comprehensive evaluations demonstrate that integrating the router leads to enhanced accuracy across a range of NLP tasks, reduces computational overhead, and facilitates the model's scalability to accommodate more parameters without a significant increase in resource consumption. These findings highlight the potential of token-level recurrent routing to advance the capabilities of MoE models, making them more adaptable and efficient for diverse natural language processing applications.

Recent changes in climate and human land-use have resulted in alterations of the geographic range of many species, including human pathogens. Geographic range expansion and population growth of human pathogens increase human disease risk. Relatively little empirical work has investigated the impact of range changes on within-population variability, a contributor to both colonization success and adaptive potential, during the precise time in which populations are colonized. This is likely due to the difficulties of collecting appropriate natural samples during the dynamic phase of migration and colonization. We systematically collected blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) across New York State (NY), USA, between 2006 and 2019, a time period coinciding with a rapid range expansion of ticks and their associated pathogens including Borrelia burgdorferi, the etiological agent of Lyme disease. These samples provide a unique opportunity to investigate the genetic dynamics of human pathogens as they expand into novel territory. We observed that founder effects were short-lived, as gene flow from long-established populations brought almost all B. burgdorferi lineages to newly colonized populations within just a few years of colonization. By seven years post-colonization, B. burgdorferi lineage frequency distributions were indistinguishable from long-established sites, indicating that local B. burgdorferi populations experience similar selective pressures despite geographic separation. The B. burgdorferi lineage dynamics elucidate the processes underlying the range expansion and demonstrate that migration into, and selection within, newly colonized sites operate on different time scales.

This study examined neural signatures associated conflict-monitoring, recognition and feedback processing in a novel feedback Concealed Information Test (fCIT), and also examined whether all the ERPs can be used to detect concealed autobiographical information. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups (guilty or innocent) and then tested in the fCIT while undergoing electroencephalograms (EEGs). Results show that the probe (participants’ name) elicited more negative N200, more positive recognition P300 than irrelevants among guilty participants, and feedback following the probe elicited a larger feedback P300 than feedback following irrelevants. Further, we found that all indicators, including conflict-monitoring N200, recognition P300, and feedback P300, could significantly discriminate between guilty and innocent participants. Combining them is highly effective in discriminating between guilty and innocent participants (AUC = 0.96). These findings not only shed light on the neural processing of fCIT, but also suggest the potential of using fCIT to detect concealed autobiographical information.

The underwater soundscape was recorded in Seaview Bay off Inexpressible Island, Ross Sea region Marine protected area, for three days in December 2021. Leopard seal Hydrurga leptonyx vocalizations were a prominent sound source that led to variations in ambient sound pressure levels in a frequency range of approximately 150 to 4,500 Hz. Among the 14 call types previously identified, except ultrasound vocalizations, six types of broadcast calls were classified, and their acoustic characteristics were analyzed. We focused on the acoustic characteristics of four low-frequency calls, clustered in a relatively narrow bandwidth, which have been relatively less studied. We identified a new call type of a triple ascending trill consisting of three trill parts, expanding upon the findings of previous studies. The audio data extracted from leopard seal vocalization videos, recorded by a monitoring camera on sea ice, enhanced the reliability of identifications of the underwater triple ascending trill. We present the unique results of underwater passive acoustic monitoring conducted at Seaview Bay, designated as Antarctic Specially Protected Area No 178. Our results could contribute to the development of detection and localization algorithms for leopard seal vocalizations and can be used as fundamental data for studies related to the vocalization and behavior of this species.

A surgical site cellulitis caused by an ant bite on foot 7 years after mastectomy: A Case ReportZhihan Liu1*Shuying Ye1*Zhihao Wei1*Shicheng Su1Yiwen Lu11Breast Tumor Center, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Dr Yiwen Lu,Breast Tumor Center, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510120, ChinaTel: +86-20-87332022Fax: +86-20-81332853Email : luyw8@mail.sysu.edu.cn

A case report of IgA-κ type multiple myeloma complicated with hyperlipidemiaJie Li†1, Jiashan Zhao†2, Songyun Wang1, Rundong Wu1, Shuyi Duan1, Huirui Wang1*1The Second Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Science and Technology.2Luoyang Central Hospital Affiliated to Zhengzhou University.†These authors have the equally contributions in this paper.* Corresponding author: Huirui Wang, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Science and Technology, No. 80, Jinguyuan Road, Xigong District, Luoyang City, Henan Province.E-mail:wanghuirui7873@163.com,

Title: Bedside intubation with the maintenance of mechanical ventilation via Ambu bag saved the life of a severe neurotoxic venomous snake bite patient in a remote district hospital in BangladeshMd. Abdul Matin¹*, Sarwar Alam Sobuj¹, Prity Saha¹, Chowdhury Adnan Sami²General Hospital, NilphamariEvercare Hospital, Dhaka

The global health emergency of COVID-19 in early 2020 placed much of the population under quarantine. Interstitial Lung Disease in childhood (chILD) was recommended to be a paediatric clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) group in April 2020 for shielding due to the unknown health consequences of COVID-19 in children with chronic respiratory conditions. This qualitative longitudinal research study explores how chILD parents in the UK experienced COVID-19 lockdown from over two interview time points. Participants ( n = 8) were recruited from chILD patient organisations and online communities. Interview one focused on the period between January 2020 to July 2020, gaining personal insight into respondent’s experience of lockdowns, which included questions on support systems and media coverage of COVID-19. The second interview asked how respondents managed further UK lockdowns between September 2020 and May 2021. The main themes were uncertainty and adaptation. Respondents described how they navigated the UK lockdowns and undertook various risk management strategies for pandemic isolation. Once these were established, routine and positive family bonding was reported, along with a reluctant acceptance of the COVID-19 virus and continued shielding. As new COVID-19 information emerged, risk management strategies changed or remained for some respondents, bringing a feeling of living with COVID-19 as a ‘new’ normal. Understanding the unique insights people with rare diseases such as chILD face during a global pandemic adds to policy and healthcare literature. Recommendations include further study of caregiver traits and resilience, essential facets of positive pandemic adaptation.

Epidemiological survey on oral allergy syndrome in patients with seasonal allergic rhinitis

Species that repeatedly evolve phenotypic clines across environmental gradients have been highlighted as ideal systems for characterizing the genomic basis of local environmental adaptation. However, few studies have assessed the importance of observed phenotypic clines for local adaptation: conspicuous traits that vary clinally may not necessarily be the most critical in determining local fitness. The present study was designed to fill this gap, using a plant species characterized by repeatedly-evolved adaptive phenotypic clines. White clover is naturally polymorphic for its chemical defense cyanogenesis; climate-associated cyanogenesis clines have evolved throughout its native and introduced range worldwide. We performed landscape genomic analyses on 415 wild genotypes from 43 locations spanning much of the North American species range to assess the relative importance of cyanogenesis loci vs. other genomic factors in local climatic adaptation. We find clear evidence of local adaptation, with temperature-related climatic variables best describing genome-wide differentiation between sampling locations. However, landscape genomic analyses indicate no significant contribution of cyanogenesis loci to local adaptation. Instead, several genomic regions containing promising candidate genes for plant response to seasonal cues are identified — some of which are shared with previously-identified QTLs for locally-adaptive fitness traits in North American white clover. Our findings suggest that local adaptation in white clover is likely determined primarily by genes controlling the timing of growth and flowering in response to local seasonal cues. More generally, this work suggests that caution is warranted when considering the importance of conspicuous phenotypic clines as primary determinants of local adaptation.

Under the background of ”dual carbon”, we must develop clean energy, build integrated energy systems (IES), and optimize their operation to achieve carbon neutrality. This study presents a strategy for the IES, whose goal is to reduce the carbon content of the power system, which aims to constrain the carbon emission of IES further, improve energy conversion efficiency, and reduce the carbon content of IES. First of all, we focus on the current situation and the improvement of the economic efficiency of the carbon trading market and introduce a tiered and hierarchical electricity carbon trading mechanism to promote IES to control carbon emissions more effectively. Then, we refine the two-stage operation process of power to gas (P2G) and propose a P2G process. This novel approach can significantly enhance the efficiency of hydrogen energy utilization and save operational expenses. In addition, this paper proposes a flexible supply and demand dual response mechanism. On the supply side, energy efficiency is improved through cogeneration with adjustable heat and power ratio. On the demand side, the efficiency of the cogeneration system in terms of energy should be improved through a flexible supply and demand side dual response mechanism. With this mechanism, the environmental protection and economic viability of IES can be further enhanced.

In its first part, this article develops a variational formulation for modeling a chemical reaction suitable to represent a combustion process. The results are obtained through standard tools of calculus of variations and optimization theory in function spaces. We assume such a chemical reaction develops in a control volume which allows the entering and leaving of the concerned reacting chemical substances. We highlight the related fluid motion is addressed in an Eulerian context. Finally, in the last sections, we present variational formulations for models in superconductivity, including a magnetic field and respective magnetic potential. We highlight in such last sections it is included an internal variables approach as well.

A document by LiMing Wen. Click on the document to view its contents.

The Schwechat depression, in the Vienna Basin (VB), is currently the main target area for deep geothermal exploration in eastern Austria. Knowledge of the subsurface heavily relies on active seismic reflection profiling experiments that are expensive and logistically demanding. Affordable geophysical prospecting methods are needed to reduce subsurface uncertainty over large spatial areas. Over recent years, seismic ambient noise tomography (ANT) has proven to be a cost-effective and environment-friendly exploration technique fulfilling this need. Here, we present an ANT study of the central Vienna Basin revealing the shear-wave velocity, and shear-wave radial anisotropy, structure down to 5 km beneath the surface. We deployed an array of 100 seismic nodal instruments during 5 weeks over summer 2023. We measured fundamental-mode Rayleigh and Love-wave group velocity dispersion from seismic noise correlations, and employed transdimensional Bayesian tomography to invert for isotropic Rayleigh and Love group velocity maps at periods ranging from 0.8 to 5.5 s. We then extracted Rayleigh and Love group velocity dispersion curves from the maps at all locations, and jointly inverted them for shear-wave velocity and radial anisotropy as a function of depth using a transdimensional Bayesian framework. Our shear-wave velocity model reveals a basin-like low-velocity feature, interpreted as the seismic signature of the Schwechat depression. Another low-velocity feature is observed beneath the city of Vienna, which could be of great interest for geothermal exploration. The shear-wave velocity radial anisotropy structure indicates a thin negative anisotropy layer in the top 150 meters, likely associated with water-saturated open cracks. Between 150 meters and 1.5 km depth, we observe widespread positive radial anisotropy across the entire study area, corresponding to sub-horizontal layering within the Neogene basin. At greater depths, the Schwechat depression is characterized by positive radial anisotropy, while the edges of the Schwechat depression exhibit negative radial anisotropy due to steeply dipping strata and normal faults responsible for the formation of this major depocenter in the Vienna Basin.

The tribological behaviors of nanoparticles (NPs) have received extensive application in the fields of nano-lubrication and ultra-precision manufacturing. The frictional and dynamic behaviors of SiO2 NPs acted with the single asperity were studied on silicon surface utilizing atomic force microscope. Both the static and kinetic friction forces of NPs exhibit an initial decrease followed by an increase with the increasing manipulation load (0 ~ 300 nN). The nonmonotonic load-dependence of friction behavior matches the dynamic transformation of “sliding-rolling-sliding” motion state of the manipulated NPs, which can be predicted by a Double-Hertz model and further confirmed by the nanoindentation marked NPs. This research has a great guiding significance for the regulated dynamic behaviors of NPs in the current three-body abrasive tribology.

The calibration-free Budyko model is capable of predicting streamflow with reasonable accuracy using only meteorological information at timescales greater than one year. However, hydrological models suitable for small timescales typically require extensive streamflow data for calibration. Taking a cue from the Budyko model, a Dynamic Budyko (DB) model was proposed to simulate runoff-generation at small timescales with a universally constant power-law parameter obtained through recession flow analysis (referred to as DBv1 here). In this study, we propose an improved DB model (DBv2) that uses a universally constant exponential parameter reported in earlier literature. Considering daily data from 975 US basins, we show that DBv2 is significantly better than DBv1 for runoff generation simulation when both models use the same routing function. We then compared DBv2 with two established hydrological models, HBV and GR4J, allowing all three models to use the same routing module having two parallel linear reservoirs (DBv2LR, HBVLR and GR4JLR; the subscript LR refers to the linear routing structure). The DBv2LR, which is calibrated only for runoff-routing, performs as good as fully calibrated HBVLR and GR4JLR, with median NSE values being close to 0.65 for all three models. The results here contradict the earlier notion that runoff-generation modelling is more complicated than runoff-routing. Our study, thus, is the latest to suggest that a paradigm shift is needed for advancing rainfall-runoff modelling further by focusing on developing climate-centric hydrological models requiring no calibration rather than developing soil-centric models with multiple free-parameters.

The multi-stage noise shaping (MASH) ΣΔ ADC has a good potential to achieve high-order noise shaping (NS) and high resolution. However, it suffers from the quantization noise leakage issue caused by the mismatch between the analog NS loop filter and the digital cancellation filter, which greatly degrades the ADC performance. The sturdy MASH structure can solve the noise leakage issue, but it cannot be directly used for NS SAR ADCs due to the structural limitations. In this paper, we propose a sturdy MASH 2-0 NS SAR to solve the noise leakage issue. The 4th-order NS is achieved by only using a 2-0 topology, which is hardware efficient. Instead of eliminating the first-stage quantization error, the proposed sturdy MASH 2-0 NS SAR shapes the quantization error, achieving better robustness to PVT variables. Furthermore, owing to the enhanced residue gain-error-shaping (GES) technique and the first-stage 2nd-order NS capability, the impairments of the residue amplifier, including the gain error, noise, and settling inaccuracy, are 4th-order shaped. Our proposed NS SAR ADC with the enhanced GES technique is implemented in a 28 nm CMOS process, which achieves a SNDR of 84.8 dB and a SFDR of 99.2 dB.

Abstract Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is an important indicator of autonomic nervous system function and overall health. This submission explores the relationship between HRV and well-being, highlighting how HRV can be used to monitor and improve physical and mental health. Practical interventions to enhance HRV and their implications for health and wellness are also included. Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measures the variation in time between consecutive heartbeats. It reflects the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system. Understanding HRV’s impact on well-being can provide valuable insights into an individual’s health parameters and stress resilience.

Droughts have pervasive societal impacts and remain difficult to characterize observationally, due to the limited number of droughts sampled in instrumental records. One approach to improving the statistical basis of drought occurrence probability estimation is to extend the observational record using proxy climatic archives, such as those based on tree-ring information. Additionally, since droughts are rare and characterized by multiannual durations and inter-arrival times, it is important to devise and apply statistical techniques that make full use of all of the available information so as to improve our ability to quantify the rarest droughts. We extract data from a publicly available tree-ring based Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) dataset, the Old World Drought Atlas, for two sites in Italy where long rainfall and temperature observational time series are leveraged for a meaningful comparison. Drought events are defined in terms of drought deficit volumes below a threshold PDSI value, and are studied through the Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution (MEVD) to quantify the occurrence probability of extreme drought events. The estimation uncertainty associated with a variety of possible assumptions in MEVD analysis is studied, in specific comparison with the performance obtained using the traditional Generalized Extreme Value distribution, through a cross-validation methodology. Results suggest that MEVD-based formulations are more robust and flexible with respect to traditional ones. The combination of paleoclimatic data and methodologies capable of using most of the existing information provide more reliable estimates of drought recurrence times, which may be used to design more effective drought risk management plans.

Nanofiltration (NF) membranes with exceptional ion selectivity and permeability are needed for the recovery of lithium from waste lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Herein, inspired by the homogeneous microchannels in the skeletal structure of glass sponges, an innovative biomimetic sponge-like sub-nanostructured NF membrane was designed using a facile alkali-induced MXene (AMXene)-ethyl formate (EF)-induced bulk/interfacial diffusion decoupling strategy to simultaneously improve Li+/Co2+ selectivity and membrane permeability. The Li+/Co2+ separation factor (SLi,Co=24) in multi-ion solution of the engineered membrane was improved by an order of magnitude compared to that of an NF270 membrane (SLi,Co =2). The selectivity of Mg2+/Na+ (BNaCl/BMgCl2=286) and SO42-/Cl- (BNaCl/BNa2SO4=941) increased by 3~12 times, and the permeability (25.8 L m-2 h-1 bar-1) remained at a desirable level, beyond the current upper bound of the other reported cutting-edge membranes. The superior performance of the designed membrane was attributed to the limited release of amine monomers in bulk phase and the boosted interfacial diffusion by reducing interfacial energy barrier during the interfacial polymerization (IP) reaction, which were realized via the synergetic effects of AMXene and EF. This approach yielded a biomimetic sponge-like sub-nanostructured NF membrane with controlled homogeneous pore radii (0.202 nm) and a thickness as small as 16.08 nm, which led to high ion selectivity and permeability. The engineered membrane is capable of efficient separation and recovery of Li+/metal ions.